Nashville’s government is struggling to get pandemic financial assistance into the hands of landlords and tenants.
After three months of taking applications, 448 people have been awarded money from the Metro Action Commission. That’s a small fraction of the overall applicants.
The city agency is responsible for distributing $20 million federal to people impacted by the pandemic.
The commission’s executive director says Nashville has run into challenges that aren’t unique to the city — like setting up technical infrastructure and having sufficient staff to screen applications.
“When we were going through the process, we thought we had enough staff,” Metro Action Commission executive director Cynthia Croom says. “We brought on 30 people for this program. Thirty.” But she says as they started working, there were 30- to 40-minute delays for people to get through.
Mayor’s director of legislative affairs, Mike Jameson, spoke in the absence of a Metro Finance department staffer. The department has received questions from council members about why money isn’t going out as fast as federal CARES act money did.
“This is certainly not apples to apples,” he says. MAC says the federal government has updated guidance five times, forcing local governments to quickly adapt.
But one nonprofit tells WPLN News that one of their concerns is that the application was created to meet the government’s needs to follow federal compliance rules and not alleviate stress for vulnerable residents.
When WPLN News asked Croom about this, she says compliance is pulled from the answers gathered and claims it doesn’t slow residents down.
The city says they’re using a 10% administrative fee to hire more staff, and partnering with a special housing court to keep people in their homes.
The federal government has given all cities an extension. They’re also monitoring how much money is awarded, and noting funds could be reallocated from slow-moving agencies to others that are quickly getting the aid to residents.
The Metro Action Commission is scheduled to receive a second round of federal housing relief.
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